Demons in the Dark
by AstraPerAspera
Summary: Jack is haunted by nightmares and Sam is determined to learn why. Spoilers for S10. SamJack. Timeline between Momento Mori and The Quest 2.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Chapters 1 and 2 take place in S10 between the episodes of _Momento Mori_ and _Company of Thieves; _Chapter 3 immediately after _CoT; _Chapter 4 is taken directly from _The Quest Part 2_, written by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie. No copyright infringement intended.

**DEMONS IN THE DARK**

Sam rolled over expecting to find the solid warmth and security of Jack's body.

Except it wasn't there.

There was just an empty space in the bed, a still warm indentation in the pillow, a comforter half-tossed back.

She raised up on her elbows and tried to focus in the darkness, but thunderstorms had blown in late and although the front had moved on, the remaining clouds had left the night steeped in utter blackness.

"Jack?" she half-whispered, still trying to pierce the indelible dark. There was no answer—at first—and then she heard a barely audible sigh.

"Yeah," came a voice from the general direction of where two chairs sat.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Go back to sleep, Sam."

She could tell by the hollowness of his voice that the "nothing" was a lie. It was always a lie. One he would persist at, no matter how many times she woke to find him like this.

She used to think the nightmares were the worst of it. The first time he'd had one, after they were together, he'd startled her awake with his shouts and thrashing about. It had taken her a minute or two to realize he was still asleep. Longer than that to actually wake him up. He hadn't even recognized her at first—and the terror in his eyes for those few uncertain seconds had truly scared her.

He'd said it was "nothing" that time too; and because they had been so newly together, she hadn't pushed him on it, even if she did lay awake for a long time afterward, listening to his uneven breathing as he wrestled in silence with whatever it was that had tormented him.

The next time she hadn't let him get away with it so easily; but he had still refused to tell her, taking her in his arms, instead, and burying his face in the back of her neck, pretending to sleep.

"A bad dream," was all he would answer the next morning. "Just…crap. It's nothing. Forget about it."

So she had tried. Until the next time. And the time after that. And the time after that.

"Maybe you should see someone," she had suggested tentatively, looking at his drawn and haggard face over breakfast one morning after it had taken nearly ten minutes to wake him from the terrors of the night before. He'd given her one of his, rare for her, Jack glares that pretty much told her what he thought of her suggestion, so she hadn't brought it up again.

It had taken months, but the nightmares had eventually subsided. At least the thrashing, screaming, shaking nightmares. But they had been replaced , in Sam's view, by something worse. Much worse.

Silence.

At least with the nightmares, she knew when something was wrong. And although he would never tell her what it was, he had finally gotten to the point where he would accept her comfort, holding her—or sometimes being held by her--until the shaking stopped and whatever horrible images he'd endured had faded. And those were only on the rare nights they spent together. She didn't dare think of what happened when they were apart, which had happened more and more after Jack's transfer to DC. Every time she thought of him waking up from one of the dreams to find himself alone…it made her heart ache for him a thousand different ways.

But the silent dreams were the worse, because she never knew when they came. She had wondered how many times, exhausted from a mission or from days on-base researching ways to defend against the Ori threat, she had slept through his terrors, missed his exodus from their bed and his lone sleepless vigil in the dark before slipping back under the covers before her alarm went off. She should have caught on sooner, she knew. Should have realized from his weary smile, his shadowy eyes, his subdued humor that the night before had not gone well. Finally she had awakened one night and discovered him, sitting alone in the dark.

It had been "nothing" then, too. But a distant and remote nothing. And even when she had gotten up and put her arms around him in the dark, she'd felt his muscles tense at her touch rather than relax as he had always managed to before. And she'd known, somehow, this was different. Deeper. More disturbing. More soul-shattering.

It had taken a lot, but she'd coaxed him back to bed, trundled him in her arms like a child, waiting for the relaxation of his muscles, the slow steady rhythm of his breathing, the blissful oblivion to steal in. Except it hadn't. She had fallen asleep first and found him showered and drinking coffee in the kitchen the next morning, up earlier than even she. He looked like he hadn't slept one bit, and she'd kicked herself for failing him. But he'd waved away her concern, gotten her to drop the subject with one look, and so she had left it alone. Again.

And now this.

"Jack. It's not nothing. And I'm not going back to sleep until you talk to me."

A stubborn silence.

She slid from beneath the sheets and went to him, finally making out his dark form in the midst of the relentless shadows. Kneeling on the floor beside him she fumbled for his hands. They were clammy and cold as stone.

"I just want to help," she pleaded. "Stop shutting me out."

The silence was as thick as the night for several beats. And then:

"I'm not trying to shut you out, Sam. I'm just…I'm just trying to shut this in. And don't…" he added even as the words were forming on her lips. "Don't tell me I need to talk about it, cuz it's not going to happen."

That was the most she had ever gotten out of him, she realized. No denial, this time. Just a plea to leave it alone. Which she would. For the moment, anyway.

Standing, she walked behind where he sat and draped her arms around his neck.

"At least come back to bed," she suggested, kissing him gently on the cheek. His hands grasped hers, they already seemed warmer.

"Yeah. Sure." he murmured and he let her lead him back to the bed.

And this time she did stay awake long after he had finally drifted off, her mind busy planning what she had to do next.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Hey, Sam."

Daniel glanced up as she walked into his office and flashed her a quick smile before dropping his head back down into the book he was reading. Sam recognized it only too well. The Book of Origin. She figured he had to be on at least his seventh read-through of the thing.

"More Origin?"

He looked up again.

"Oh yeah. Just can't seem to get enough of it," he answered dryly. He furrowed his brows as if just really seeing her for the first time. "What's up?" She could hear his concern ratchet up a notch. She figured she must look as uneasy as she felt.

"Can we talk…privately?"

Now he looked even more curious.

"Uh…sure." He looked around and found a chair buried under a pile of books. Excavating it, he brought it forward and offered it to her before dragging his own over closer.

"What's going on ?" he asked, when she'd settled herself. Sam couldn't help a glance toward the door, thinking someone might barge in on them. Vala was the most likely intruder, but Sam knew that Cam and Teal'c had taken her to the practice range to get her used to the weapons she would now get to carry as an official member of SG-1. Still, she did have the penchant for showing up when least expected.

Daniel followed her gaze toward the door and as if reading her thoughts said:

"They're going to be gone for hours. Unless one of them shoots her first, that is."

Sam smiled and looked at Daniel. It occurred to her how much he had changed in the years she had known him. She found herself trying to figure out just when all the awe and wonder of the universe had vanished for him. Even after Sha're had died he had still managed to hang on to some of his rapture for the new and undiscovered. Maybe it was when he'd finally figured out that the only difference between humans and goa'ulds in their lust for power was mere physiology. Or maybe it was when the Ancients he had held in such high esteem turned out to be too tied up with their own enlightenment to care about the fate of the rest of the galaxy. But something had shifted in Daniel. He had a different center of balance than he'd had in the past. She'd noticed it most when they'd returned from Atlantis. There was a bitterness—a hardness to him he'd never had before. And it saddened her.

Sam realized she and Daniel hadn't really talked in a long time. Their lives had been so consumed with the advancing Ori for so many months that whatever down time they had she had tried to spend with Jack. And although they had a near-weekly "team night", which usually involved pizza, a DVD and a lot of off-work banter, she couldn't remember when she and Daniel had had time for a good heart to heart. Once they had been so close. Now…. Suddenly she felt awkward sitting there, about to ask what she had come to ask.

But Daniel was looking at her expectantly, and the only way she was going to find out what she needed to was to spit it out. Sam took a deep breath and began.

"I need to ask you something…about when you were ascended."

Daniel's smile was forced.

"Which time? The first or the second?"

"The first."

"Ahh." Daniel fiddled with his pencil. "There are still a lot of gaps in that, you know. Giant holes of things I have absolutely no clue about."

Sam nodded.

"I know. But I think you remember this. It was the time Jack was held prisoner by Ba'al."

Daniel's face went carefully blank.

"Ahhh. That."

"Yeah." Sam answered. "He's never talked about it much. But he did tell me that you were there. That you helped him."

Daniel made a grimace.

"If you could call it that. Not one of my more stellar moments as a friend."

Sam shrugged.

"I'm guessing you probably didn't have much choice."

Daniel's mouth gave an odd twitch.

"Oh yeah. The almighty Ascended Rule Book."

Sam caught herself chewing her lip and stopped. The next part was going to be hard, and she had no idea if Daniel would tell her what she needed to know. Still, she had to try.

"What happened to him, Daniel? What did Ba'al do to him?"

Daniel studied his hands and the pencil.

"Look, Sam…."

"Daniel…please…I have to know," she pleaded. He looked up and met her gaze with a questioning look.

"He has these dreams, Daniel…nightmares. It's…well, it scares me. And what's worse, he won't talk about it. I figure it has something to do with Ba'al because that's the only thing I can make out when he's screaming…" her voice trailed off. She felt like she was betraying Jack's confidence, telling Daniel about his most private and personal pain. But she was desperate, and Daniel was the only one she could talk to. The only one who might hold the answers she needed.

Daniel was frowning. Not at her, she realized, but as he engaged in some internal struggle, probably deciding what he could tell her. Or should. Sam felt a slight twinge of irritation; she had given up Jack's private torment to Daniel, hoping to help him; the least Daniel could do was tell her what he knew.

Sam saw Daniel set his jaw and knew he'd reached some kind of decision.

"I offered to ascend him," he said finally, a look of self-recrimination stealing over his face. "Can you believe that? He asked for my help and I offered him 'enlightenment'. Is that pathetic or what?"

He took off his glasses and wiped them absently with his shirt.

"What did Ba'al do to him, Daniel?" Sam half-whispered, persistent. A cold fear began to tingle at the base of her neck.

Daniel put his glasses back on and looked at Sam with grief-filled eyes.

"He killed him, Sam. A half dozen times. In a half dozen ways. Staff blast. Daggers. Acid. Poison. And he didn't just kill him. He killed him slowly. Tortured him. Acid drop by acid drop. Knife wound by knife wound. And then he'd stick him in a sarcophagus and do it all over again."

A flood of images assailed her. Jack's deathly pallor when they'd rescued him from Ba'al's fortress. The scorched and blood-stained clothes they'd found him in. The haunted, almost delusional stare he'd fixed on them during the cargo ship's pokey ride back to earth. And super-imposed on all of this, the terrifying sound of Jack screaming incoherently in the darkness beside her.

"Oh God!" Sam drew in her breath. Those fingers of ice were all over her now and she felt sick to her stomach. She had Jolinar's memories of goa'uld torture, but still…nothing that began to touch the sadistic brutality of what Daniel was telling her.

"He begged me…_begged_ me to end it, Sam. He begged me to let him die. But I wouldn't…I _couldn't_. The rules…" Daniel looked away and Sam could see his eyes glistening. Or maybe it was the tears in her own eyes. For Jack. For Daniel. For both of them. It had to have been hell, pure and simple.

She reached over and took Daniel's hand. Her own was trembling too. He looked at her, eyes rimmed red.

"He forgave me—later, after I…after I came back and began to remember," Daniel's smile was brittle. "But even if he could, I couldn't, Sam. I still can't. And if he's been having dreams…."

"I'm sorry, Daniel. I'm so sorry…." She barely knew what she was saying. Her throat was so tight with choked back tears the words barely made it out. A sick horror seized her knowing now what Jack had been through and Daniel had witnessed.

"No—Sam. _I'm_ sorry. It's my fault. I should have done more…should have told the Ancients to screw it…"

Sam shook her head.

"I was the one who convinced him to accept the Tok'ra symbiote in the first place," she said weakly, remembering her desperate plea to Jack. She'd been terrified he'd refuse and that she would lose him, once and for all. "If he hadn't…."

"If he hadn't, he'd be dead. It's not your fault, Sam. I'm the one who should have helped him. I'm the one who had the power."

Sam knew they could debate blame forever and neither of them would allow the other to shoulder the whole burden. But that wasn't what she'd come looking for. She'd wanted to understand what had happened. It was her only hope of helping Jack. She determinedly wiped the dampness from her face.

"It doesn't matter, Daniel. Either of us or both of us. I don't care about that now. It's Jack I'm worried about. When we first started…" she stumbled over her words. "I mean when he and I began…." She realized her face was warm with embarrassment. Daniel was the only one who for certain knew about her and Jack, and that was because she had told him herself. She'd left it to Jack to tell Teal'c…or not. She wasn't sure if Jack had ever gotten around to it, but even if he hadn't, she knew Teal'c suspected the truth at the very least. Nevertheless, it didn't make it any easier to talk about it, even with Daniel. She felt uncharacteristically flustered.

"He'd only have the dreams occasionally," she went on, deciding to skip the preamble. She was pretty sure Daniel knew exactly when she and Jack had started sleeping together. She remembered Daniel's barely suppressed half-grin that he kept trying to hide that first weekend at the cottage and how he'd made an excuse for him and Teal'c to need to head back to Colorado Springs earlier than planned.

"Now he has them all the time…," she forged ahead. "And that's only as infrequently as I get to see him. What he suffers through the rest of the time…"

And in some ways that was the worst. For as bad as Jack's nights were when they were together, it tore her apart to think of him waking up alone from one of those damn dreams and having no one there to help ground him, even as reluctant as he was to accept her help. And it was taking its toll on him, she could tell. When she'd see him after days or weeks apart, there was a weariness in his eyes and dampening of his demeanor that contradicted the bravado he put forth to the rest of the world. It was eating him alive from the inside out and she had to put a stop to it. Somehow.

"How can I help?"

Sam felt a pang of gratitude. Daniel's voice…the warm caring look in his eyes…it was almost the Daniel she had known not so long ago. The same one who had once stopped her outside Cassie's door and told her she didn't have to do this alone. His offer meant everything to her, if only she could accept it. Sadly, she shook her head.

"I don't know if you can, Daniel. I'm not even sure I can. But at least I know what it is I'm up against now. And I thank you for that."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Hi."

The look on his face was priceless, and under any other circumstances she would have been smugly pleased with herself that she'd been able to catch him off-guard like this. But she was too absolutely weary to feel anything but a desire to step inside the door and shut the world—hell, the whole damn galaxy—out behind her.

"Where's your key?"

Okay. So it wasn't exactly the response she had expected, but then there was the practical side to Jack too.

"Back at the SGC—I, uh, sorta got a quick ride here after the debriefing," she pointed upward, indicating the Odyssey, now back in orbit around earth. "Can I come in?" she asked after a moment of standing there, waiting for Jack to step aside. He had been studying her, instead…assessing her, she could tell. Of course he knew what had happened. He'd been in on the conference call. She could see the note pad on the coffee table in the room behind him.

"So…they couldn't have simply beamed you into the house?" he asked, stepping aside so she could come in. She dropped her duffel on the floor of the entryway and propped her briefcase next to it.

"I had to make a stop at the Pentagon first. Some things of Colonel Emerson's…." she cleared her throat. She wasn't ready to talk about it again. Not right now. "Anyway…I took a cab here."

He was studying her again, watching her for…what? she wondered.

"You okay?" he asked finally. Sam felt her composure slip. Damn. She had promised herself she wasn't going to do this.

"Just tired," she lied. Not that it was altogether a lie. She was tired. Exhausted, in fact. But not only exhausted.

Jack closed the door behind her. The entryway was dim and she was glad of it. It kept him from seeing her too closely and it gave her a reason to avoid his all too direct gaze.

"Hungry? I went shopping…there's, like…salad, and everything…." he gestured toward the kitchen.

Sam shook her head. She had no appetite. Her gut ached too much to even think of putting food down it.

"No…thanks…I think I'll just…"

"Sam…" he interrupted her, the tone of his voice changing. She couldn't help herself. She looked at him.

That was all it took.

She barely heard the "c'mere". His arms were around her, encircling her, drawing her into his strength. Sam buried her face in his shoulder and wept.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, when the sobs had finally stopped wracking her body and she stepped away from him, wiping her face with both hands. She'd left a large wet spot on his shirt, right above his heart.

"What for? Paul Emerson was your friend. You're entitled. You don't have to suck it up all the time, Sam. Not here. Not with me."

She looked at him through puffy eyes.

"Not like you, huh?"

The words just came out. She hadn't meant to say them.

Jack's brow furrowed in genuine puzzlement.

"What are you talking about?"

Sam closed her eyes and thought of what Daniel had told her a few weeks ago. This was _so_ not the time for this. Her own emotions were raw and jagged and she was so utterly done-in that she felt like she could sleep for a week.

The words tumbled out anyway.

"I said, not like you. The way you keep everything to yourself. Those damn dreams, Jack. The ones you won't talk about. The ones where Ba'al tortures you and kills you, over and over again…."

His face had gone ashen and a veil of inscrutability dropped over his eyes. He had slammed the door shut on her again, and she knew in a matter of mere seconds he would tell her to leave it alone.

Except she couldn't now. She didn't have the energy to rein in her emotions, to tip-toe around the subject, to give him his space and let him work it out on his own. If what they had together was to have any kind of a future—if it was to be any kind of lasting relationship that would endure when all the newness of the passion and the delighting in their long-forbidden love had worn off—then there had to be trust. And not just the trust of fidelity or truthfulness, but the trust of laying out before one another the deepest part of themselves: darkness and light, hope and despair, fears and joys, dreams and nightmares. If they couldn't do that…if they couldn't trust one another with those parts of themselves…then they really had nothing after all.

"Damn it, Jack…_please_…," Sam pleaded hoarsely.

It must have been something in her voice. As quickly as it had fallen, the veil lifted.

And the eyes behind it were filled with suffering.

They wouldn't meet hers, but instead glanced ceiling-ward as Jack's face twisted with a grimace of pain and a groaning intake of breath. He expelled the air slowly and she could see him trying to form his emotions into words.

She tried to help.

"Look…Jack…I understand. Daniel told me…about what happened with Ba'al. He told me all of it. So I understand the nightmares…."

"No. Sam. You don't."

He said it quietly, but forcefully. Sam's speech died on her lips.

"But…?"

Brown, agonized eyes fixed on hers.

"The dreams aren't about me, Sam—not anymore, anyway. God! I wish they still were!" He looked away from her again, grasping for composure. "Night after night it's the same damn thing…I'm just a helpless, sorry, son-of-a-bitch who can't do a goddam thing but stand by and watch as that slime-sucking, snake-headed, bastard…." He struggled a moment. "Tortures _you_."

Jack's eyes were locked with hers again, boring into her, showing her the grief he carried in those visions that his words could not adequately express. And Sam understood. It wasn't just his own demons he wrestled with night after night. It was also his worst fear…his fear for her.

"God…Jack…."

He winced and hung his head, like a small boy who'd been caught in a lie. Or in this case, caught in the truth.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked him softly, fighting against the urge to wrap him in her arms and comfort him, as if he were indeed that small boy. He stole a glance at her.

"Cuz I don't do this…" his hands gestured back and forth between the two of them. "You know…sharing stuff…so good. In fact, I really rather suck at it."

This time she went to him.

"Yeah…you do," she agreed, her cheek pressed against his. He clung to her, as though he was trying to reassure himself that she was indeed standing there in one piece, and not the victim of Ba'al's relentless cruelty. And Sam clung to him, half-comforting, half oddly joyous with relief that he had finally confided in her the truth.

And now the burden was hers. She had to somehow relieve him of that fear.

"I _am_ okay, you know," she reassured him quietly, as they still held one another. Her mind flitted briefly to the Odyssey and the threats Anateo had made to keep her working. She'd kept the specifics about his advances out of her report, scrubbed herself clean as soon as she could find a shower, and was grateful that he'd never gone farther than feeling her up on a few occasions. Details Jack didn't need to know. What would be the point of exorcising one demon only to replace it with another. "And Ba'al is long gone—all dozen or so copies of him—and I don't think we'll see him again for a while. We're both safe, Jack. He's not going to hurt us anymore."

"Right," he answered, breaking their embrace. "Like he couldn't almost kill you right in the middle of the SGC with two dozen SFs, a couple of canisters of symbiote poison and SG-1 all within shouting distance." Anger tinged his tone of voice.

"That's not going to happen again," she said, trying for her own tone of confident certainty. "We thought we had the situation under control, we just never counted on Agent Barrett being compromised…."

Illumination descended on Sam. Ba'al's infiltration of the SGC and escape with the coordinates from the Ancient Database happened about the time when Jack's nightmares had ramped up from the occasional to the near-nightly. There was nothing coincidental about it, Sam was sure. Ba'al's threats against her had been the trigger.

Jack was watching her, seeing if she had put it altogether.

Now it all made sense. The pieces of the puzzle finally completing the picture.

If only she could only make Jack stop looking at it.

Sam shook her head slightly and sighed.

"Jack—I can take care of myself, you know."

Hands went deep in his pockets. A practiced pose of ease that she knew meant just the opposite.

"I know." His voice belied his practiced nonchalance. "Doesn't make it any easier."

No. It didn't. She knew that. Especially from where he sat. She, at least, had the luxury of not having to worry about him being on the front line anymore. His foe these days was the bureaucracy and occasionally the cantankerous members of the IOA. And while she knew part of him hated flying a desk, she had to admit that it made her own life so much less complicated not having to fear for his well-being as she knew he feared for hers.

And she could reassure him about her own supposed ability to stay out of trouble all she wanted, but it was a hollow boast, and they both knew it. What she had just endured on the Odyssey was proof enough of that. And if she had any illusions as to her own immortality or the immortality of those closest to her, all she had to do was ask Paul Emerson's widow for a reality check. It could just as easily have been Jack receiving that box of "personal effects" she had just dropped off at the Pentagon.

It was useless to tell him not to worry. It would be like telling him not to breathe. She wondered if they had managed to kill Ba'al—and regrettably they'd missed their chance at that twice—if that would have ended Jack's torment. Maybe. Part of her would love to give that theory a chance the next time they crossed paths with him. But that wouldn't solve the problem in the here and now.

"No—I guess it doesn't," she answered him, finally. "Look—I wish I could tell you not to worry, but I know there's no point. And I know you well enough to know that you're not going to pour your soul out to me when something's bothering you. I want to help you, Jack…I just don't know how."

A long silence followed. The ever dimming light shadowed his face so she could no longer make out his expression. He'd gone taciturn again. Shut down. Closed off.

Sam sighed. Whatever emotional reserve she'd had from the ordeal of the past few days was gone. She ached with exhaustion.

Bending down to pick up her duffel, she felt Jack's hand on her arm, stopping her. Sam turned around.

"Just…just keep coming home, okay?" His voice was quiet, his face close enough now that she could read every nuance of expression.

The simplicity of his request caught her off-guard. And yet, it was so Jack. Nothing complex. Everything at it's most basic level.

_Just keep coming home._

If only she could make that promise. But then a promise wasn't what he was asking for.

"Okay," she managed, though her throat was dangerously tight. They held each others gaze for what might have been mere seconds…or maybe hours…and Sam realized that really, there wasn't anything else that needed to be said. They understood each other perfectly.

"C'mon." Jack murmured finally. He held out his hand to her. She stared at it momentarily and then looked up at him. Even in this light he seemed to have shed ten years. Gone were the unspoken fears and frustrations. He was simply the man she loved.

And who loved her.

Fatigue crashed over her like a giant wave. The day had held too much.

"Jack…I'm so tired…." she admitted, reluctantly.

"I know. C'mon. I'll tuck you in."

She let him lead her up the stairs, surrendering to her exhaustion. And when she found herself beneath the blankets and his arms wrapped securely around her, she gave in to her own, mercifully dreamless sleep.

When Sam awoke the next morning, Jack was still there. Sound asleep. Still holding her, as he had the entire night, without stirring once.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Look, I still think I'm right about the obelisk, but I can't make heads or tails of the programming."

He chuckled ever so condescendingly, barely glancing up from the notepad that was connected to the DHD.

"Well…that's hardly surprising. I know where you come from you're considered relatively intelligent, but by galactic standards that's not really saying much. Wouldn't you agree?"

The superior smirk across his chiseled features made Sam's skin crawl. But then everything about him made her skin crawl. She could hardly bear to be on the same planet with the creep, let alone to have to depend on his knowledge for the second time in almost as many years.

Of course the only reason he had given them what they'd needed to defeat the replicators was because it had been in his own best interest to do so—only to turn around and help Anubis in his attempt to exterminate the entire galaxy with the very same technology. And she couldn't forget about his little stint on earth…with a naquadah enhanced building bomb that could have taken out half of Seattle. Then there was his attempt at stealing stargates across the galaxy…plus his theft of the gate coordinates from the SGC…all tied up with the pretty bow of him actually beating them to this planet where they'd met up with the Orici herself and were now trying to stay one step ahead of her while giving Daniel a chance to do whatever the hell it was he was doing.

Toss in his usual goa'uld arrogance, his condescending, chauvinist attitude and the fact that he had so ruthlessly, mercilessly and relentlessly tortured and killed Jack….

Sam turned away, trying to bite back the rage that had simmered so close to the surface for so long.

She lost.

He knuckles hurt like hell, but it was worth it. The shocked look on the arrogant bastard's face and the trickle of blood that dribbled down from his nose….

She wished Jack could have seen it.

"You know—" she said coolly. "If you're not going to help, you're really not much use to us. And if you're not much use to us, then there's not much point in keeping you alive any longer. Wouldn't you agree?" She threw his own words back in his not-so-lovely-now goa'uld face.

Wiping his bloody nose and casting a glance in Teal'c's direction, Ba'al gave a humorless laugh.

"I'd be delighted to help," he said, as meekly as was possible for a goa'uld.

Sam gave him her very best Jack-like smirk.

"Great to hear it," she replied, slapping the diagnostic tool into his out-stretched hand and turning her back on him.

Walking back to the obelisk, Sam had to suppress a smile. Damn that felt good. When she got home and Jack got back from Atlantis she'd tell him all about it. She could almost see his face breaking into a grin, his eyes dancing with delight. He grinned a lot more lately, since the dreams had stopped coming. There had been a marked change in him. A sort of settled peace.

And now everything was changed.

Sam smiled as her hand went to her jacket and she felt the weight of the Academy ring he'd given her that now hung on her tags beneath her shirt.

Everything was changed indeed. They had Merlin's weapon…or at least the next best thing. In a little while, she had no doubt, they'd override the automatic dialing program on the obelisk and gate home. For once it looked as though they might have an advantage over the Ori after all. And when Jack got back from babysitting Woolsey on Atlantis…Sam's smile widened.

She heard Ba'al scrambling to his feet behind her. She could still feel the crumpling cartilage at the end of her fist.

Oh yeah. She hadn't felt this good in a long time.

She just hoped it wasn't too good to last.


End file.
